The Art of Tea: Green Tea

~Thank you to everyone who voted on our poll on Facebook. It looks like ya’ll are interested in the best ways to drink green tea so that is what I will be focusing on in this post!~

I think there is a lot of hesitation around green tea and how to drink it. I find it to be the most temperamental of all the tea types. In my opinion, it can also be the most rewarding. I think the best way to illustrate this is through an experience I had with green tea recently.

The other day my co-worker, who is an exchange student from the mainland China, brought his whole tea set to work (upon my request) and some Dragonwell or Long Jing Shi Feng. Dragonwell is a very famous green tea from China. What was interesting is that he made a couple of comments about the tea that I thought were very interesting. This was a 2018 Dragonwell and he apologized because it was old, but still okay to drink. He also mentioned that green tea is best drank fresh. I had boiled some hot water and put it in my thermos, but then I realized I needed to open the thermos so the water could cool off. I also like my tea brewed thicker so he added more leaves upon my request. He also steeped the tea very quickly.

To maximize your experience with green tea it is very important to follow a couple golden rules

1. Drink the tea while it is fresh. This means drinking it within 6 months of purchase or before a year has passed since it has been plucked and processed. The differences between a fresh green tea and an old green tea are night and day. Green tea is like Cinderella, after midnight it turns into a pumpkin.
2. Do not use boiling water. Although I have seen certain methods of successfully brewing green tea with boiling water, for most people boiling water is going to result in bitter nasty undrinkable tea (for the US palette). My recommendation is to bring the temperature of the water to 175°F (80°C). If you are using an electric kettle I would boil the water, then open the lid and let the water cool for 3 minutes.
3. Quick steeps: I would recommend 2 min max if you want a robust flavor without the bitterness. When you do a second steeping then you can bring it to 3-4 minutes.
4. Make tea for you. What does this mean? Tea is all about what tastes and feels good to you. If you like strong tea add more tea leaves. If you like a softer flavor use less. Sometimes you have to experiment to figure out what you like and that’s normal.

I hope this post was helpful to you. Please comment below or reach out to me at lmftea@gmail.com if you have specific questions or a suggestion for the next blog post!